There comes point after you have watched your loved ones undergo every possible treatment, endure every possible procedure, suffer the pain, side effects, complications requiring more tests, more surgeries, more EVERYthing. The quality of their last months is horrendous (as that young point man's life would have been) and in the end they (and you) lose the battle and die. They've had invasive surgery, brutal reactions to chemo, medicines, pain killers, and half the time were semi-conscious due to drug-induced euphoria. When you are left there, all alone, having lost the one you love, you say, “Was it really worth it?” Would it have been better to let God and nature take it's course and we could have had a couple of weeks of the best times ever, or did I do the right thing.
Their bodies lie before you, lifeless, scarred and in your pain you ask was it worth it, or you see them flatlined on a ventilator, no brain activity and they breathe and breathe, their heart is pumping with a machine and that's that. Sure there should be Medical POAs and Directives, but what about the elderly who don't have it or the indigent elderly who don't have it. I'm hoping all they're asking is to think about it and make some plans.
Unfortunately when you open the door, the government knows no bounds. The next guy in office may decide to apply the law for more sinister reasons. That's the danger.
Obama's line about people maybe being better off with a painkiller was a fine one as far as it goes, except that the decision of whether someone would be "better off" with the painkiller is most likely not going to have anything to do with whether the person would be willing to pay for the surgery.